Influence of Treading Pressure Exerted on Growth of Japanese Lawn Grass. Relation Between Frequency of Treading Pressure and Growth

Abstract

Turves are always trod down by people, or players when games are played, at such places as garden, parks, golf-courses, baseball grounds, school grounds, other stadiums, etc. It is generally said that turf-treading is harmful to turves, but the details are not clear yet. The authors make experiments on the following items in oder to know the relation between growth of sod and frequency of turf-treading, using a Japanese variety called “Koraishiba” :
(1) Where does the allowable boundary to the turf-treading exist?(2) At what degree of turftreading does the remarkable damage to the growth of sod apear?(3) What kind of shape will the harm take on the growth of sod? etc. The authors gave treading pressure on the turf as similer as possible with much care by the method with resembles an actual case.
The experiment was practiced, ranging five months from June 15 to November 15. They established two growps of plots the one of which hod turftreading once or twice a day
Besides the above 24 plots containing mowing and non-mowing plots, two contrast plots were also made, totaling 30 plots.
The result of experiment was as follows: The pressure due to reading was rather favorable to the turf as far as it was practised slightly. In this case vertical stalks and leaves in crassed, and especially the former increasing by over 1.5 times. The sod because lower in hight, and leaves slender in shapa, but did not become paler in color. It was worthy of note that the turves grew thicker with more slender leaves as compared with those of non-treading plots, and a favorable condition was developed.
However, in case of treading over 300 times, thed amage begins to apear gradually.
The quantity of chlorophyl reduced, leaves becam paler gradually. Dead leaves began to increase and tore off to fall at last, when treading exceeded 700 times, only vertical stems remaining
So the soil consolidation did not reach deep very much in the sphere of the treading frequency of this expriment, the harm to growth of sod on the ground was chiefly caused by such mechanical damages as abrasion and torsion between sods themselwes.